Confessions of a Game-Mistress

Recently, my friends and I took a trip to the sunny shores of Myrtle Beach, SC. Most everyone was excited about the beach. Not so much, I. It’s my dirty little secret, and I share it with my blog audience.

I feel like a social leper with all my friends who love it, but - I don’t like the beach. Everyone I know loves the place. Me, I’d rather stay in the hotel swimming pool. Why, you ask?

1) Ocean water tastes nasty. I mean like pickled fish sardine nasty. There is no going in the ocean past your ankles without getting a mouth and nose full of the nasty stuff. Yuck.
2) Sand. Sand is pretty to look at, it makes a great view if you’re watching from a cabana up the beach. Go out barefoot, or heavens help you slip and fall, and you are reminded that it’s the component of sandpaper. Yes, we use it to abrade stuff. On the beach, it’s my feet, my knees, my elbows….. And don’t even get me started about the foolishness of walking around on glass silicates that have been in the sun for hours. Hot doesn’t begin to describe it. Sand is evil. It gets into everything if you go to the beach, every single item you carry is full of abrasives. If you go into the water, the floating sand goes everywhere under your swimsuit. I mean everywhere. I had sand in places I didn’t know I had places. And sand, it must be mentioned, is a lousy condiment. Sand-flavored soda, not the winner in this year’s taste test.
And let’s not forget 3) I don’t tan. I burn to a color red that is usually reserved for fire engines. I itch, I peel, and I’m white again. Lather, rinse, repeat. There is no in-between delectable golden brown, I just burn.

Myrtle Beach was fun anyway, for all the non-beach things. I got introduced to a new way to burn money - it’s called Magiquest. Live action computer assisted gaming. It’s like Everquest that doesn’t leave you a couch potato. http://magiquest.com/ The MagiQuest people obviously have many levels of Bard amongst them. They can entertain you, steal your pouch, empty it, sell it back to you and still leave you wanting more. They separated my friends and me from $120 within 5 minutes of walking in. We went back the next day, too.

MagiQuest is an RFID-Based LARP. Each player has a wand, which is registered to them. That wand contains your ID for MagiQuest. To play, you sign up for quests and missions on an RFID reader terminal, and then you wander around their large facility, which has been bedecked in set pieces and paint to resemble crypts, castles and such. When you reach the spot where you are supposed to do something, you wave your wand at an ID spot on the wall, which recognizes you from the RFID chip, and tags you as having completed that portion of the quest. Some sections have animated video pieces that ‘interact’ with you in reaction to your wand.

It sounds simplistic, but it’s a load of fun, especially for kids. And it kept the adults entertained too, and exercising, as running all over the place to get the components for the quests is solid exercise.

The wands are pretty, they have interchangeable parts, and each part costs money. Only the base wand is needed to play, but who wants an ‘ordinary’ wand? In fact, there’s a secondary hobby, that I leapt into fast and found out many long-term players do as well - repainting the wands. After all, why not be distinctive?

All in all, if you’re going to Myrtle Beach, go look up the MagiQuest website, do the online quest, and treat yourself to a fun hour or two.